


ghost cookies

by ConvenientAlias



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Gen, No Apocalypse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 17:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18392813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Zoya Popova shows up at the manor. Klaus isn't quite sure what to do with her.





	ghost cookies

After Klaus gets sober, some familiar faces do start to show up. Unfortunately none of them is Dave. Some are old nemeses from Academy days—he recognizes their hostile faces and avoids or ignores them as best he can. Others are wanderers, they come in and out and around. They tell him they were killed by Diego or they have been in love with Allison since watching his first movie. He mostly ignores them.

And then there’s Zoya Popova.

She shows up shortly after the apocalypse is averted, a stern look on her face, a scarf over her hair and an apron over her skirt. The blood on her head is mostly dry so she’s not as grotesque as some. She is a nuisance, though. Won’t stop talking, and he still can’t speak Russian.

“Yes, I remember you, you’re Zoya Popova. Okay, yeah. Of course I remember you—you nagged for at least three hours—said with love,” he says quickly when Zoya’s face crumples a little and she begins to turn away. He’s never had a grandmother but for some reason she makes him feel vaguely guilty. “But yeah, why are you here though? I mean, Hazel and Cha-cha are… elsewhere…” He waves a hand. Who knows where those two ran off to? He’d love to hunt them down with Diego again, give them a piece of his mind, but things around the Academy are busy and they don’t really have time right now.

“She must have followed you back,” Ben says. “Most of the ghosts trailing you do it for no good reason, anyways.”

Klaus smiles at him sweetly. “Just like you, then.”

Ben crosses his arms.

Klaus turns back to Zoya Popova. “Hey, if you want me to avenge you, look, I’m not really the best person. Not really my thing.” Usually he just tells ghosts to shut up and get out but he and Zoya have enemies in common and a…vaguely genial relationship?... so he’ll be kind of polite. “Not that I wouldn’t love to gut them, but. Not my schtick. Maybe go haunt them again, yeah? I mean, if I do chase them down, you’ll have front row seating either way.”

Zoya says something in Russian. She seems to disagree with him. That or she hasn’t understood a word he’s said.

Klaus sighs. “Fine. Well, there’s a lot of ghosts in this manor. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of company.”

* * *

Sometimes Zoya Popova sits in on family meetings. Not so unlike any of the other ghosts that hover the manor; they like to listen in. She offers no concrete opinions on Luther’s familial guidance, Five’s sarcasm, Vanya’s vaguely apologetic bitterness, Allison’s writings on a notepad, or Diego’s concise input. When shouting starts, though, she’ll look at Klaus for his reactions. If he’s joined the shouting or incited it, she’ll click her tongue or shake her head, sometimes stand between him and the person he’s shouting at. If he’s having a bad day and just presses his hands against his ears, trying to block it all out, she’ll pat him on the shoulder.

Usually she goes through, but not always. Ghosts are sometimes solid these days, but Klaus hasn’t figured out yet how to control it. Ben sometimes seems to materialize by himself, somewhat controlling the process. Sometimes with their combined efforts he spends whole hours visible to the entire family. Other times Klaus will try to give him form and it won’t work at all.

Klaus has never tried to materialize Zoya Popova but she’s a stubborn old woman. Sometimes she pats him on the shoulders and her hands feel solid, almost warm. He could swear he’s felt her old, callused hands pat his cheek at night, though when he wakes up she’s not there. (It could be anyone, it could be a hallucination, but somehow he thinks it’s her.) Then one day after Klaus has had a bad argument, when he’s been shut up in his room for four hours straight with no company but Ben, she slides through the walls with a tray of freshly baked cookies.

Ben startles. “Dude.” He hits Klaus’s arm, making no impact. But Zoya is grandly material, and she sets the tray down next to Klaus on the bed.

The cookies are real—they smell, and when Klaus touches them, they are solid. Klaus has no idea why they were able to go through the wall, or how Zoya is currently material, or… nothing about this situation makes sense.

He hesitantly takes a small bite out of one of the cookies. Zoya watches him eagerly, Ben warily; ghosts can’t eat. It’s crinkly-moist-crunchy dough, all at once, with powdered sugar over it—the name of the dish escapes him. It tastes like the kind of home he never had.

“Oh my god,” he moans. “Zoooya…”

Ben grimaces. “Don’t be gross. She’s like eighty.”

“Zoya Popova, you angel.” He gulps the whole cookie down. “Why didn’t you tell me you could cook? We have got to start taking advantage of this,” he notes to Ben.

Ben says, “What you have to do is start controlling what ghosts you make material. What if you made a hostile ghost material without knowing it? You could get killed.”

“So?” Klaus shrugged. “You want one of these? I could probably make you…” He waves a hand—it lights up and Ben turns blue. He hands Ben one of the cookies.

Ben bites into it and swallows. “Okay, never mind. We should definitely focus on making more of these.”

“Right?” Klaus turns to Zoya. “What’s your recipe?”

Zoya, as usual, answers in Russian. But Klaus figures he can watch her the next time she bakes.

* * *

With Klaus materializing Zoya now and again, eventually all the other Umbrella Academy members run into her.

Five can actually speak Russian. He has a lengthy conversation with her, very serious, and accepts some of her cookies. All he’ll tell Klaus about it though is that Zoya’s a fine lady and Klaus should respect her, and also she was murdered by Hazel and Cha-cha, which Klaus already knew. He’s not Klaus’s translator, he says. Klaus sticks out his tongue.

Luther’s kind of wary of her. “We can’t just have random ghosts wandering the manor,” he tells Klaus.

Klaus says, “Brother, if you knew how many much worse ghosts are wandering the manor right now, you wouldn’t be complaining to me about a perfectly nice babushka. See? She’s very friendly.”

Zoya is staring at Luther in vague distress. She gets like this sometimes.

Luther sighs. “Okay. But keep an eye on her.”

“Can’t help that,” Klaus mutters.

Allison has a conversation with Zoya entirely conducted in sketches to overcome the language barrier, which is a clever idea; Klaus should have thought of it sooner. For that matter, he thinks, it might be useful to have her write stuff down that he can put into Google Translate. Technology is a beautiful thing.

Vanya is so-so on Zoya until Zoya unexpectedly gives her a hug. Then she says it’s great to have someone new around, especially since it seems like she’s good for Klaus. Sure. Completely disinterested.

Diego gives her a long speech about how he’ll see Hazel and Cha-cha face justice eventually, and Klaus nods gravely. It remains ambiguous how much Zoya has actually understood, but she gives Diego a generous helping of the soup she’s making at the time.

As for Ben, his opinion varies. Sometimes the two get along fine, other times they quarrel in different languages or nonverbally. Klaus thinks he’s jealous that these days other ghosts sometimes get Klaus’s attention. Nonetheless, they don’t argue too much, so Klaus doesn’t worry about it.

The blood has faded from Zoya’s forehead; now it only appears occasionally. She strides about the manor with the purpose of a housewife, shooing out ghosts she doesn’t like, conversing with its other inhabitants even when they can’t hear her.

Ben tells Klaus, “I think maybe she’s getting more material because you like her more, or you’re more attached to her.”

Can’t be true, Klaus thinks, or Dave would have showed up by now. But he says, “That can’t be right, or why do you get material so often?”

Ben swats him, and this time it lands.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I just wanna write something quick and fun.  
> My roommate: Write a fanfic where that old Russian woman makes Klaus ghost cookies.  
> Me: okay  
> My roommate: Wait are you seriously...


End file.
